This week, Noises Off is weeping humble tears of joy, and thanking its friends, family and agent. Yes, it is awards season (again) and bloggers have been anatomising, ridiculing and congratulating the winners of last Sunday's Tony awards in equal measure.

Ken Davenport at the Producer's Perspective seems to have enjoyed the event so much that he is handing out his own set of prizes (sort of) in response. He cites Marian Seldes for best speech (she said nothing) and Sean Hayes for best host (he was, in fact, the only host). On this side of the pond, much has been made of the British success, and no one seems more pleased than Mark Shenton who actually made his way over to New York to attend the ceremony. In fact, he goes so far as to suggest that this recognition of homegrown talent might justify the ceremony being televised in Britain – perhaps on BBC4. It is an interesting idea and would certainly save Shenton the cost of his air fare next year.

Of course, not everyone was impressed with the ceremony. The Chicago Theatre Addict was particularly scathing of Catherine Zeta Jones's "inelegant, mannered and lip-sweaty performance of Send in the Clowns". And Tom Loughlin at the Poor Player took the opportunity to reflect on the fundamentally superficial nature of awards ceremonies. His focus is the Artie awards – theatre awards for the Buffalo community. It is often said, he points out, that "the Arties are all political – until you win one". Indeed, this is a statement that could apply to most awards ceremonies. Loughlin goes on to analyse, at length, why he finds the events so discomfiting, and his observations are likely to ring true with anyone who has stood uneasily at the edge of a glamorous function feeling that they don't quite fit in.

In other news, actor training has been a hot topic recently. Lyn Gardner kicked off quite a debate about the issue with her post on the subject, in which she argued that drama schools often do not provide their students with the necessary tools to create work for themselves. This is an attitude that Dennis Baker finds reflected in a report by Sonia Kuftinec entitled Educating the Creative Theatre Artist. Kuftinec argues: "Conventional [undergraduate] production (and I would add BFA pre-professional) training tends to recycle a system that emphasises the passivity of the individual actor rather than [create] students who can think critically and creatively about the value of theatre in society and who act upon those thoughts." These words are worth heeding – as funding cuts bite and competition for what remains grows even more fierce, actors who don't have the tools to generate and create their own work are quickly going to find themselves left behind.

Other blogs that are worth looking at this week include a post on the TCG website by August Schulenberg about how we decide what to charge for tickets. He is not talking about simple rip-off scams, he is wondering how the amount a theatre charges for a show affects its relationship with the community it serves. You should also take some time to drop in on the Mission Paradox blog where Adam Thurman is chewing over false distinctions between artists and administrators in the way that theatres are run.